


AU: Cinnabar

by ghostscribe



Series: ReGuri Week 2020 [4]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:40:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26559856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostscribe/pseuds/ghostscribe
Summary: “What are you?”It looks at him blankly then looks away. Its expression is indiscernible and Green can’t tell if he should fear a potential attack or not.[good question.]
Relationships: Ookido Green | Blue Oak/Red
Series: ReGuri Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931590
Comments: 16
Kudos: 83





	AU: Cinnabar

**Author's Note:**

> This is a collection of drabbles for this year's ReGuri week! The prompts can be found [here](https://reguridiscordserver.tumblr.com/post/627435884456919040/the-reguri-week-2020-prompts-have-been-chosen) if you're interested.  
> 

He’s not going to find anything. 

Objectively, he knows this. He knows there’s nothing of interest out here, and yet he’s drawn back all the same, searching for an answer where no answers lie. He feels kind of dumb coming back here like some kind of ghost buster to an empty house. There is nothing unusual to see here.

Still, Green’s Pokédex has been malfunctioning since the first time he came to the coast, so _something_ happened. It’s just not… not _that._

It’s stupid. It’s just a series of campfire stories that have been distorted and bastardized into something horrifying where no such horror exists. There have been rumors of mysterious goings-on out by the east coast for years; it’s not new. The stories are just getting popular again, and now as always, he chalks it up to just that, just _rumors,_ it can’t be - _won’t_ be - anything more than that. Stories of a humanoid with horns and skeletal wings, the sound of a screeching radio and the feeling of electrified air… That kind of thing just doesn’t _happen._ He is a man of science and he _knows,_ definitely, that kind of thing doesn’t happen. It’s the type of old wive’s tale to keep kids from going outside past dark.

It doesn’t happen. Pokémon exist, but pure _monsters -_ no, they don’t exist in the way people presume they do. Something else has to be going on out here.

Green is a man of science and he cannot deny that which he can reach out to touch. He cannot touch a story.

He can touch a colony of Starmie.

 _Really,_ he thinks, sighs to himself. He was halfway amused with the apparent discovery, though another half of him was just offended that he’d even _considered_ looking into the stories. He went home without any further investigation, because there was nothing else _to_ investigate.

It was a colony of Starmie. That was all. 

Still, he came back today. He has no idea what compels him to return to the coast, what urges him to find an answer to the rumors.

“Of course it’s just some Starmie, eh?” He mumbles to himself, letting his feet sink a little in the sand. “Subtype in psychic… they could be strong enough to cause visual hallucinations if they were pressed to do so. But… hm.”

The water stirs, seems to shift direction. He notices the motion but doesn’t really take particular note of it. The coast is known for riptides out here. If not a riptide, it’s probably the aforementioned Pokémon - maybe even something bigger that’s washed too close to shore. If it’s a Gyarados, Green’s going to want to be on standby to help it back out to sea. 

“So what would we be dealing with, in that case?” He pulls out his tablet, jotting down notes as he thinks aloud. “Starmie are generally indifferent to human interaction, so there would need to be a reason it would see humans as a _threat_ in this area. Maybe a nest? It’s not warm enough for them to raise their young here… unless the water’s heating up. Cinnabar _is_ a volcanic island… that’d spell trouble.”

He does not notice the water stir and swirl this time. He does not notice that he sinks a little deeper into the sand.

“Then again, it could be an ill Starmie acting out defensively. Pokémon afflicted with PokéRus sometimes become exceedingly aggressive - in which case, I’d probably wanna find it and bring it into the lab. It’s rare to actually find a wild Pokémon suffering from PokéRus, and left untreated it could battle itself into exhaustion…” 

Doesn’t notice. Just like him to be so lost in his work that he neglects the very world that he studies.

“Or maybe… definitely wouldn't be a territory fight, especially among one colony. Starmie aren’t that territorial unless there’s a severe lack of resources. Last year’s survey didn’t show anything unusual over here on that front. Maybe - ”

Green hears the water sloshing. It’s not the sound of a normal wave. 

Confusion exists as the intersection between ambiguity and unfamiliarity; it is when something is neither clear nor familiar in its context. He’s been researching the biomes in southeast Kanto for years, now. He knows how the ocean sounds and he knows how each surfacing Pokémon sounds. He’s been called neurotic for going to the lengths of committing every external stimulus to memory, but he feels (and perhaps it’s a bit arrogant) that’s what makes him such a good scientist. He knows what he’s looking for; he is looking for that which is confusing, that which is _unknown_ to him.

He does, oddly enough, know what he is looking at, and he only knows it because he’s heard the rumors.

...he’s going insane. He’s not seeing this.

Green tries, fails to understand what he sees. He looks down, up, double-takes again, hopes it'll disappear but it does not. It looks directly into his eyes and he feels himself shudder. The waves are getting choppy.

He's not sure if he would call the thing hovering over the waves a _monster_ necessarily, but it is not human, nor is it truly a Pokémon, no, it is some sort of intersection between the two - or perhaps it is fully a lack thereof. Clusters of what look to be _pixels_ surround the creature, hovering and flickering, as if Green’s eyes were a screen and the battery were low. Short, bony horns protrude from its head, and the wings - they are nothing but bone, and yet they still keep it hovering over the ocean, distorting the world around them, distorting even itself. Pieces of its body are pulled away from him, as if cut with scissors and cast aside, and the voids in his body are filled in with - with pixels, Green doesn't have a better word to describe that substance.

Under all its incomprehensible features, it looks human. 

Green has no words for this kind of thing. This is beyond any of his studies; beyond any scientific understanding.

For once in his life, Green wonders if he even _wants_ an answer.

“...what is that?” Green barely breathes the words, fearing an answer, or perhaps just… too stunned to ask directly. He’s not - he doesn’t know what he’s thinking. He knows what he’s _seeing_ but he sees no Starmie below the waves and he hears his Pokédex emitting this harsh digital shriek and his skepticism is on its death bead. “What _are_ you?”

It looks at him blankly, then looks away. Its expression is indiscernible and Green can’t tell if he should fear a potential attack or not. 

[good question.]

It - It doesn’t _say_ anything, no. The words just kinda… appear. They float over its head in a box for a moment, then disappear, leaving an uncomfortably empty silence between the two of them.

“...what do you mean by that?” Green ventures to ask, still keeping his voice low, as if speaking any louder would cause it to attack. It looks… looks either disinterested or perhaps just bored. 

[i don’t know.]

Green glares a bit, raises his voice ever so slightly, tests the waters. “You know what you are, don’t you?” It flinches, letting out a startled digital peep. A defensive creature more so than an aggressive one, it seems. “Why don’t you just tell me?”

[i do\» n t kn˘o .w]

The text box starts to fragment, distorts. The creature is trying to glare at Green, but it looks more nervous than menacing.

“...I see.” Green takes a deep breath, steadying himself. He is a man of science and if this thing actually exists, then there is a science to its presence. He feels much the same way about ghosts and aliens and cryptids; if they _do_ exist, it’s by no magic nor fictional powers. The world is inherently _ascertainable._

So too should the creature, but when Green takes his Pokédex out to try and scan it, it reads out a short error message before immediately crashing: **MissingNO ER#1F203234383D3E3F4344454F505156575E5F73797A7F -**

The machine shuts down before it can continue it’s error code. The Pokédex never has error codes that are that long and that incoherent. It’s just running through garbage data.

“...did you break my ‘dex?”

It looks at him as he snaps, and then it… kinda curls in on itself, wraps its wings around its body.

Then it - it almost sounds like a squeak at first, then it’s this droning error sort of noise. It covers its face, shudders, sinks a bit toward the water.

...is it crying?

“It… it’s okay if you did.” Jesus this is weird. “Do you… know how to fix it?”

[BR±e’AK i¯te˘M° bre‹€ak]

And then, somehow, clear as day - 

“Sorry.”

The voice sounds like it’s coming over a handheld radio, but it is audible, undoubtedly its voice. 

It sounds kinda nice. Soft, gentle, despite its appearance suggesting otherwise. Green should’ve known not to judge a book by its cover.

...the hell is he saying?

“It - It’s fine, I can get it repaired, whatever.” The thing still shudders, slowly claws at its face with nails like bone. “Hey, don’t - no, don’t do that - ” 

Perhaps this is a bad idea, but Green follows through anyway. He leaves his notes on the sand, rushes into the water, intends to pull the creature back to shore. He’s not sure if the fluid dripping from its wounds is blood or something else, but they seem to be deep cuts and they don’t seem like they’ll heal on their own any time soon.

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” and now he speaks softly again, careful to keep a soothing tone to his voice. “Looked like that hurt, though. Do you want help?”

Silence, for a moment.

[why?]

“I mean… why not?” Green asks simply, feeling a little strange that it asked at all. “You’re hurt, right? I’m not just gonna leave you here bleeding.” 

[breÆak]

“Break… no, it’s fine, I’ll just - ”

[¿hu°rt‡ breÁk ¯m»on˘ster HUNT] 

_Monster_ _hunt_ catches his attention. He thinks Green is going to - or maybe it _has_ been hunted. Maybe that’s why it’s behaving defensively in the first place. All the stories of _the creature of the coast attacked the man and he was never seen again,_ perhaps they all come with the condition of, _the man tried to hurt the creature without so much as a second thought._ Who in the right mind would hunt something as weird as this, though? Poachers? No - Team Rocket, perhaps. If Team Rocket got their hands on this thing, that’d be bad news for sure.

...it’s still crying. Tears don’t really fall but it makes these bubbly digital noises that he can only presume is its way of sobbing. 

“...oh, come here, you big baby.”

Green holds his hand out; he’s not sure if he should reach for it like it’s a human or like a Pokémon, but it has humanoid hands so he opts for the former. 

It hesitates initially. The waves come up and seep into Green’s shoes. 

It reaches out. It touches his hand and he feels a slight zap, nothing unpleasant but it’s a noticeable static. 

Its eyes glow red for a moment. Green gently tugs it toward the sand and it follows.

“I’m… I’m not _mad_ at you,” he explains, though it feels a bit weird to do so, “I just don’t understand how you work or what you are. Doesn’t seem like _you_ know either, but I’m a researcher, so finding answers to things is kinda my game, y’know.” It responds with a quick _beep_ of acknowledgement. “That’s why I keep asking you things. I have questions and I want answers, alright?” 

He turns back to it, and it stares back at him with a timidity more in line with that of a lost Rattata than of an eldritch being. 

[sorry. I don“t have ma∫ny answers.]

“S’okay. We’ll figure it out together, eh?” 

[TogetheR>?]

“Yeah, yeah.”

It’s smiling, almost beaming at him. Its eyes are glowing again.

...that should _not_ be cute.

“While I’m at this,” and Green pulls his first aid kit out of his bag, always handy to have during field work, “do you… have a name, by chance?”

[no.]

“Ah.” He wipes the “blood” off its face, packages the dirtied wipes away for later testing. “What do I call you, then?”

It looks at him, down at the sand, shrugs noncommittally. Its eyes flicker.

“...how does _Red_ sound?”

The noise it makes sounds like a happy Nidoran, of all the noises it could’ve made.

At least it’s happy. Happiness is something Green neglects in his own work, but he doesn’t try to stop himself from laughing and smiling and just feeling at peace with the unknown for once in his life. 

“Red it is, then. That kinda matches my name, y’know… I’m Green, for the record.” 

[Green]

The bubble of text appears three, four, five times over. Red chirps again bows his wings toward Green.

Maybe it’s stupid to even think about, but Green considers that a hug. 

He pats Red on the head. He smells like sea salt and hot circuits.

**Author's Note:**

> a family doesn't need to be a husband, a wife, a son and a daughter. sometimes a family can be a science boy and his glitchy boyfriend  
> fun fact the error code on Green's pokédex is actually a string of like half of missingno's hexidecimal slots!!  
> anyway i am incapable of writing Red without him _somehow_ being a soft boy, even if he is an eldritch abomination. i had a concept for an extension of this where Green is studying Red and eventually has to protect him from Team Rocket, but alas idk enough abt where i'd take that to write it


End file.
